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Errian Umon
Master Errian lives halfway up a mountain that borders Faywick, in his little house on the cliff. He's lived there for decades, maybe centuries -- or at least as long as Sam can remember. He's a quiet and gentle old man with a passion for books and an acute interest in magic and physics. He has no family that anyone is aware of, and doesn't much come down off the mountain unless specifically invited to a barbecue, in which case he always brings a pie. The Rskalar children for two generations have always curiously climbed the mountain to Master Errian's house, where they were guaranteed to find fresh-baked food, a long adventurous story, and lessons in reading, writing and magic. Or, they would just find the old man fast asleep in his armchair, in which case it was just best to come back tomorrow. Errian Umon is 96 years old and proud of his age, saying with age came the right to beat young politicians with a stick and no one could admonish him. He loves having visitors but could sit for hours just telling stories if left uninterrupted, even after his guests have fallen asleep. He retreated to the mountain the day the Empress took her throne, for he knew enough that this monarch was the beginning of a long and grueling future. He took his leave of the politicians, the armies and the schools that heralded him so well, afraid the Empress would enlist him to her service should she find his whereabouts, and he very well was presumed dead by all who had known him. Throughout his life he had traveled to nearly every corner of Mournma, lived among every sort of people, flew with the Sky Elves and exchanged riddles with the Fae. He had been a great sorceror and a master at the manipulation of Chi and Mugen; at his peak he could meditate for days on-end. He had many friends and many enemies, had marched on battlefields, oversaw hospitals, and watched each of his six children die at various stages of their lives. But what interested him most were the Dragons, and the philosophy of their existence and the existence of everything that was. So much research went into the Red Ore, the creation stories and prophecies as told by different peoples, the properties of Mugen, the people who claimed to hear their voices, that by the time he had grown old he was practically mad with obsession. Even still, his house is filled with great maps of the world as it once was, drawings of Dragons, graphs and diagrams of the evolution of the planet through the thoughts of the creators, bits of Red Ore in all sorts of experimental devices, which take over an entire wing of the house and line every shelf and wall. Sometimes a little ore-powered golem would clink by on the floor, only to be kicked into a corner by a hapless guest. And so, he knows exactly what he has tucked safely inside a book titled WARS OF ANCIENT UKLEEA, shoved inconspicuously among other tomes of dull history. He obtained it after a long search as a young man, at the end of which he found a small village of natives who were dying of an uncommon disease. He found and administered a cure to them, and in gratitude their chief presented him with a page of paper, saying it held great power and had given their tribe luck with the herd for generations. They didn't know what it truly was, but Errian accepted it with thanks and went on his way. He had fully intended to gather more of the pages, had the Empress not interrupted him. So he kept that first page and hid it away, hoping that one day...